


Truth

by Evilquirrel18



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilquirrel18/pseuds/Evilquirrel18
Summary: One shot drabble where Frank needs to be patched up and lay low.





	Truth

**Author's Note:**

> No timeline other than this was written before the shows release and posted originally to my tumblr page. 
> 
> @evilsquirrel18

  
  
She’d gotten careless, she knew it. Karen Page wasn’t stupid. She felt abandoned, which wasn’t all together a new feeling. No Foggy, though she couldn’t blame him, he had his own life. His new job took up a lot of his time. And that was fine with Karen. He deserved this. No Matt, though that had been all Karen’s doing. After he had exposed himself as the Daredevil she had laughed her head off. And it hadn’t been from humor. No, Karen was done with that. Done with the lies. Done. Done done. Super duper done. She didn’t want to try and decipher his meaning, hidden agenda.. whatever.    
  
So she laughed in his face, shook her head, held up her hands in defeat and told him very politely (not) to fuck off. She didn’t use that word often but, it really felt nice watching his face turn to surprise. And then there was Frank. He never lied to her, except for when he did. And she had blindly placed her trust there. Why? She honestly didn’t know. She thought about him, she shouldn’t, but she did.    
  
It wasn’t an active thing, in fact, she didn’t sit there and daydream about the Punisher. No, it had started very innocently. When they began looking into the possibility of copy cats and Karen was thrown into the case. She had been forced to think about it and then after that she had found those thoughts sneaking in with her normal ones.    
  
The drive home, that awful song would come on and she’d grip the steering wheel a little tighter. And then her sleep. Jesus, when she slept she had no control. It started as a simple thing. They were in that diner, drinking coffee and Frank was talking to her about love. Then the next time she dreamt of him he was slamming the door in her face. He was already dead. But, he couldn’t be. Could he? She’d known those weren’t copy cats the moment she had seen the crime photos. This was Frank’s work.    
  
And then her world came to a screeching halt one night. When she had gotten home from a particular late night she had stopped. Knew he was in her apartment before she even fully walked in. He had a presence that.. well, it was all consuming. She was shutting the door when she saw his shadow move by her window.    
  
“I’m sorry, ma'am, to come here like this.” He breathed. “I needed to lay low and–”    
  
“Where have you been, Frank?” Her words sounded far away, and her heart was beating so loudly in her chest. Her blood roaring in her ears. She felt clammy. Was it hot in here?    
  
“Around.”    
  
His simple one worded reply had her hitching her breath. And then she saw it; the way he favored his left leg but only slightly.    
  
“Jesus, Frank. What happened?” And then she flipped on her lights and wished she hadn’t. He was a mess. A damn mess! His face looked like hamburger, his lower lip split, both eyes blackened and his nose obviously broken. Damn, it was always his nose. Frank was equal parts handsome and a little brutal. Deadly. She hissed, shrugged out of her jacket and moved toward him.    
  
“I just need to use your bathroom, if that’s alright?” He held up his hand, not wanting her to get too close to all the blood on him.    
  
Karen nodded quickly. “Yes.. I uh.. yeah. Here. What do you need?”    
  
“Hot shower… got a first aid kit?”    
  
And that was how Karen got into Frank Castle’s pants. Not intentionally, of course but in order to get to that wound on his leg he’d had to drop his jeans. And much to her surprise he seemed almost… embarrassed? She wasn’t sure.    
  
He’d been grazed, a through and through, but it needed cleaned and stitched. She tried her hardest to not to look but.. well… Frank was a boxer brief man. And the bullet had torn through his upper thigh.    
  
Karen knelt between his legs, threading her needle.    
  
“I can stitch it.” His voice was deeper than normal and when Karen looked up he was staring down at her. She felt her entire body still, her fingers that were threading the needle hovered.    
  
“It’s no trouble, Frank. I would imagine it would be hard to stitch yourself.” She tore her eyes away, looked down and tried to focus on the task at hand. She heard his breath come out in a harsh noise as she leaned inward against his thigh and stuck his flesh. She made short work of his leg, making tight stitches. She clipped the end, grabbed a bandage and tape. “Going to tell me how this happened?”    
  
“No.”    
  
Karen’s brows crinkled and she snapped her eyes up to him and then slapped the bandage on his thigh with a little more force than necessary. “You can’t just come here without an explanation, Frank.”    
  
“With all due respect, ma'am, I’m afraid if I tell you that you’ll go running off after the men responsible.” His eyes were amused and Karen was glaring even more. “I have read your articles.”    
  
Karen didn’t quite know why but she flushed. She was still knelt between his legs and she suddenly realized. Shifting, she tried not to look but found her eyes trained on the course, dark hair of his thigh. She cleared her throat, moved, rose to her feet.    
  
“Ya could tell me to leave. You probably should.. and I would.” Frank rumbled as he pushed from the chair, tested the weight on his leg and then reached for his jeans.    
  
“No, you aren’t leaving tonight. You’re too banged up. And your clothes are trashed.” Karen said as she snatched the garment from under his hands and moved away from him.    
  
The look Frank gave her was a cross between amusement and astonishment. He stood there, in nothing but a gray pair of boxer briefs and he still managed to look threatening. She’d stitched up a knife wound on his shoulder. Her eyes drifted down his body, the thick curve of his chest and then snapped up to his face and her cheeks colored. Karen turned, quickly busied herself as she gathered his clothes and threw them into her hamper.    
  
When she turned back to him, met his gaze she was actually surprised to see him looking slightly awkward. She walked toward her dresser and began to rummage through it. “These.. were an old boyfriends.. I uh.. I just keep them for…” she turned with a pair of sweat pants in her hands and trailed off. Frank didn’t seem like the sweat pants kind of man. But, he took them from her, careful not to touch her skin and slowly stepped into them.    
  
“I.. have you eaten?”    
  
It was after dinner, after a pot of coffee and a mild conversation that Karen told him she needed to get some sleep. Frank looked like he might bolt but in the end and after a argument about it and the sleeping arrangements he was settled on her sofa while she lay in her bed. The only sound was their breathing and the ticking of her wall clock. She’d told him that he could take the bed, he looked too big for her sofa. She shifted, picked at the lint on her quilt.    
  
“I didn’t mean it.” Karen whispered into the darkness and she heard him sigh. When he didn’t answer she swallowed. “What I said thst night.. when I told you.. I didn’t mean it.”    
  
Another sigh and she worried her lip between her teeth.    
  
“Yes, you did. You weren’t wrong.” He rumbled after a moment.    
  
Karen felt her brows furrow together and she shook her head against her pillow. “I never should have said it.” She blinked when she heard him move and was momentarily surprised when he spoke again.    
  
“Don’t ever be sorry for speaking your mind to me, Karen.”    
  
She mulled his words over in her head for a few moments and then smiled slightly. “Goodnight, Frank.”    
  
“Night, ma'am.”


End file.
